"The Good Provider is the One Who Leaves"

A very enlightening and moving article on Filipino migrant workers appeared on the New York Times Magazine last 22 April 2007.

Nearly 10 percent of the country's 89 million people live abroad. About 3.6 million are O.F.W.'s - contract workers. Another 3.2 million have migrated permanently, largely to the United States - and 1.3 million more are thought to be overseas illegally. (American visas, which are probably the hardest to get, are also the most coveted, both for the prosperity they promise and because the Philippines, a former colony, retains an unrequited fascination with the U.S.) There are a million O.F.W.'s in Saudi Arabia alone, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. Yet with workers in at least 170 countries, the O.F.W.'s are literally everywhere, including the high seas. About a quarter of the world's seafarers come from the Philippines. The Greek word for maid is Filipineza. The "modern heroes" send home $15 billion a year, a seventh of the country's gross domestic product. Addressing a Manila audience, Rick Warren, the evangelist, called Filipino guest workers the Josephs of their day - toiling in the homes of modern Pharaohs to liberate their people.

With barely a week before the elections, the article should put some sense into every dimwit politician's vacuous agenda.

Check it here (you need to set-up an account with www.nytimes.com though).